2018/03/31 by Marcus V. S. Bonança, Sebastian Deffner · 1 citation
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Applied mathematics #Classical mechanics #Computer science #Control (management) #Control theory (sociology) #Counterintuitive #Dissipation #Engineering #Harmonic #Harmonic oscillator #Mathematical optimization #Mathematics #Optimal control #Parametric statistics #Physics #Quadratic equation #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum mechanics #Range (aeronautics) #Simple (philosophy) #Simple harmonic motion #Statistical physics #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.98.042103
published as Phys. Rev. E 98, 042103 (2018) · 5 pages, 4 figures, suppl. mater.: 3 pages, 4 figures
openalex publication_date 2018/10/02 · arxiv created 2018/10/10 · arxiv updated 2018/10/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
A central goal of thermodynamics is to identify optimal processes during which the least amount of energy is dissipated into the environment. Generally, even for simple systems, such as the parametric harmonic oscillator, optimal control strategies are mathematically involved and contain peculiar and counterintuitive features. We show that optimal driving protocols determined by means of linear-response theory exhibit the same step and \ensuremathδ-peak-like structures that were previously found from solving the full optimal control problem. However, our method is significantly less involved, since only a minimum of a quadratic form has to be determined. In addition, our findings suggest that optimal protocols from linear-response theory are applicable far outside their actual range of validity.